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Last night I spoke at Stirchley Neighbourhood Forum about the Bath’s project. People were keen to know how the restoration is progressing, so I shared old photographs and recent ones to show how much progress has been made.

In June 2014 the roof of the Baths looked like this:

In January 2015 it looks like this:

The roof lanterns will be fully finished by next month.

And the internal scaffolding in the main hall where the pool is, has now been removed:

I also spoke about this blog site. I want more people to blog. I want you to blog!

This blog was created to share Stirchley residents’ passion for the community centre. It is also a place to share memories of Stirchley’s past and present day activities.

In March there will be opportunities to learn how to blog. Social surgeries will be organised (hopefully 3) to help people who’d like to share their stories. More details about when these sessions will happen will appear on Stirchley Baths Facebook page, Twitter @StirchleyBaths and via the Neighbourhood Forum.

It would be great to share old photos and memorabilia. If you have anything but don’t want to blog please get in touch if you’re happy for me to share them. Or bring them with you to the social surgeries in March.

A resident at the forum asked me about the floor plan for the community centre. Mark Sloane, the architect has kindly sent it to me. The first image is the most recent plan of the layout of the whole site. The second image is from early 2014, but shows in detail the intended uses of the rooms.

On Saturday a group met at Selly Oak District Office to discuss the future running of Stirchley Baths Community Centre. Amongst the group were specialists in Community Asset Transfers and prospective trustees.

The purpose of the meeting was to make the role of the future trustees clear and explain how the Community Asset Transfer would work. The community centre is due to finish in August and Open to coincide with Stirchley Late Summer Bash in September 2015. £3,000,000 from Tesco has been provided from the sale of the old community centre and £1,500,000 from Heritage Lottery Fund, on the condition there will be a Heritage Officer appointed for 3 years to provide interpretation and community activities.

Plans by the architect.

Re-produced original plans from C.1910.

Mark, the project architect talked about how the restoration is progressing. For the benefit of some attendees who haven’t visited the building he provided photographs showing progress.

Disrepair.

Structural decay pre-restoration.

Problem areas pre-restoration.

We discussed the layout and the updated plan for improved access to the carpark. The carpark will back onto Stirchley Park and approximately £40k from the demolition of the bowling green is being used for improvement work on the park. Once the community centre opens it will share a special relationship with the park as they will naturally work together. Further talks about the layout of the community centre explained there’ll be a kitchen area, cafe, main hall (where the pool will be covered), a cinema room and several multi-use rooms. These have been designed for hire with 15-20 people being able to use a medium sized room. These will provide revenue for the community centre, making it more sustainable. Disabled access will be through the rear entrance, near the green area and will lead straight into the cafe.

Repair progressing on the roof, November 2014.

Mark said the iconic cupola is due to be reinstated soon. It had gone to Ironbridge for restoration work. The original plans of the building showed that there was once a second cupola and clock. Both of these will be added to the building. There will be a meeting with the clock manufacturer in a few weeks regarding the style of the clock. Although the building was in quite a poor state at the start of restoration, some beams, such as the one in the room that used to house slipper baths has been repaired off-site and will be reinstated. Half of the roof has been salvaged and matching welsh slates have completed this area now. The glass lantern, which will provide much needed light to a building with few windows has been finished and painting has begun.

Roof lantern, January 2015.

Roof lantern being painted, January 2015.

Karen explained that the community centre will be like a mini MAC for the area and it will have a similar feel to St Nicholas Place in Kings Norton. Stirchley as an area has a lot of ‘social capital’ because there are lots of creative groups, such as Stirchley Happenings and S.U.R.N who network to improve the area. The Community Asset Transfer means that Birmingham City Council will set up the operational aspects of the building and run it from September 2015 to March 2016. It will be at that point that the trustees who have been appointed take over. To enable this, people such as Alison and Jane will work with the group to write a business plan. The lease will be 25 years and to be successful the group will need to be interviewed to ensure they are capable of the role. The group will be advised to register themselves as a charity as this cuts rates by 80%. Although the independent advice they receive will require payment, the district have funds available from ‘community scaffolding’ and fundraising will take place. The centre is not intended as a sports location but groups such as badminton, yoga, karate and fencing will be welcome. It is also hoped that a significant number of groups who used the old community centre will use the new one.

The main question is whether this group want to run the building. Although there are other community stakeholders, such as the Neighbourhood Forum and Friends of Stirchley Park that want to support future trustees and the project, the group must be certain that they are happy to proceed.

The roof, January 2015.

Birgit Kehrer who runs Change Kitchen provided us with a yummy lunch while Nick Booth from Podnosh introduced the group to Stirchley Baths blog. He talked about how it was set up to demonstrate community support for the Heritage Lottery Fund bid. I explained how I started contributing to the blog a year ago after attending a social media surgery hosted at Loaf. The blog (and Facebook and Twitter accounts) are intended to keep people interested in the project while the restoration is taking place. Anything Stirchley related can be blogged about. I talked about how I want more people to contribute blogs, to share more Stirchley stories. If you have anything you’d like to write about, be it Stirchley’s past or things happening today it’d be great to share them on the blog. Nick will be hosting another social media surgery in March to help anyone that would like to learn how to blog and use Facebook and Twitter. If you have any old photos of Stirchley- a funday, street party, opening of a shop- anything at all that you’d be happy for me to share on the blog please get in touch.

One of the many history boards telling the story of Stirchley village.

It was agreed that the group will meet in the next few days independently to discuss whether they want to be trustees. A decision will be needed in the next four weeks.

Hello, my name is Soho Bear. With everyone so busy getting ready for Christmas I’m helping out by doing a guest blog. Recently I’ve been on a bit of a heritage tour of the great attractions in Birmingham so it was only natural that I pay a visit to Stirchley Baths.

I’m originally from Handsworth and live at Soho House, which was home to industrialist Matthew Boulton. Today the house is a museum that hosts a lot of community events. Because of this I couldn’t wait to see Stirchley Baths and get excited about all that the Heritage Lottery Funding will make possible!

Last week, I and people from Stirchley community enjoyed a floodlit tour hosted by the site team for Belfour Beatty. We all put on our hard hats, high visibility jackets, gloves and goggles. During the introduction (where I made a new friend) it was explained to us that although the wet and windy weather has been a challenge, the building is now structurally more stable, with most steels in place, which means dozens of workers can now be on site.

The Pool.

The tour started in the main pool room and it is looking great! The balconies have been removed (although part of it is undergoing conservation and will be returned once building work is near completion). The roof of this room, which will be transformed into a fantastic sports hall, has now been insulated, felt and battened. The beautiful Welsh and Yorkshire slates are now being set out on the ground ready for fixing. The timber frame to the pool roof lantern is now complete and work on the glazing has begun.

Tiles that will be preserved.

The room that will house the cinema screen.

The enormous boiler has now been removed from site and the boiler house entrance wall is now being re-built. The room that will house a cinema screen has been opened out. The lovely original bath tiles will make these areas unique.

This room used to house the HUGE boiler.

The most exciting part of the tour was a trip to the roof! With a little help I ascended the ladder! The flat roof has now been stripped and swept of existing perished asphalt, ready for new insulation. The huge chimney that used to puff out smoke from the coal that heated the water has had a lot of structural work. The brickwork has been re-pointed and washed down and the chimney top has been covered with a concrete cap. The chimney scaffold was due to be dropped but unfortunately due to theft of the new lightning protection system, this has been delayed.

Up the ladder I go!

The Cupola base.

The Cupola, which you may all be missing, has been removed to Ironbridge for conservation repair. Brickwork to the base of the main cupola has been taken down and completely re-built. The environmental clean and scaffold to the missing Cupola no.2 base has now been completed with a structural inspection taking place soon.

Our tour finished with a hot cup of tea and a mince pie (mini sized for me, obviously). All that is left is for me to wish you all a Merry Christmas and maybe you’ll see me in another exciting Birmingham attraction in the new year!

With the combination of an extremely wet October and the discovery of a few further structural set backs; October has been a challenging month for Balfour Beatty project team. However with the building now stripped back to its raw structure and a new programme been put in place; real progress is starting to be shown.

This month:

View of Birmingham from the chimney.

– All internal areas now propped ready for existing structural steels to be replaced with new.

You may have been wondering where the Cupola has disappeared to.

– The Chimney has been completely re-pointed, had a brand new lightning protection system installed and is now awaiting a concrete cap.

- The iconic Cupola and flag pole has now been dismantled, lifted off via the crane and taken away for refurbishment

– The brickwork either side of the cupola has now had structural ties installed and been re-built back up to coping stone level.

View of the new pool roof.

– All timber roof purlins and rafters have now been replaced with new.

New rooms formed inside.

Next month we will be: – Breaking out the existing floor slab and creating new internal foundations ready for blockwork walls to be erected. – Felt, batten and re-tile the main pool roof with existing Blue Welsh Slates and Green Westmorland Slates. – Install all new structural steels to basement and ground floor. – Start stripping and relaying the flat roof area. – Install new truss roof along curved frontage. – Wash down chimney brickwork, install cap and drop chimney scaffold.

Here’s an update from Jack Carey; newly appointed co-site manager on the build:

“September has been a month of change on Balfour Beattys refurbishment of Stirchley Baths; after 47 years of service to the construction industry, Site Manager Steve Marsh finally has decided to step down and take his retirement. Steve set up and started this project back in February 2014 and has managed it up until now; I’d like to wish Steve all the best in his retirement and thank him for his efforts and invaluable service to our company. Moving forward I’d like to introduce you to our new site team; Site Manager Tony Fisher and myself, Site Manager Jack Carey. Having both come from Carpentry backgrounds we are both extremely excited to be working on a building with such heritage, character and will relish this opportunity. It is our goal to bring this building back to life and make it what it once was; the heart of the Stirchley community.”

Construction activities taking place this month has mainly been structural; due to the building being unused and un-maintained for so long water had penetrated in many places causing brickwork to move materials to decay. At present we are:

– Demolishing internal walls to create new more open areas – Installing new structural steels in the basement – Installing new doorways, openings and lintels internally – Chasing out all external brick joints ready for re-pointing – Re-building and refurbishing the parapet wall and decorative stone frontage – Installing a new timber roof over the main pool

It is imperative that we get these structural works right to ensure that the building will last for future generations to enjoy.”